Somebody call the whambulance. Our incredibly incompetent spies did something incompetent and a few of them are getting punished for it. I don't know why higher up heads haven't rolled over the incredibly lax security that let Snowden get access in the first place.

It's a pretty incredible claim that he had credentials for two dozen people. Whether or not you think polys work, most people in that area think they do. So they might initially agree to give out a login, but it's pretty amazing that no one reported it.

Quote:

The two latter were not employees of the NSA, so while their access to NSA information access was revoked, their employers are responsible for disciplinary action.

They'll obviously be fired and any background check that touches government records will pull up termination due to a security violation. Almost certainly any job in the public sector, and probably many corporate jobs will be a no go, so that's pretty severe disciplinary action.

Again, that's why I'm highly skeptical of the "20 to 25" people claim.

The two latter were not employees of the NSA, so while their access to NSA information access was revoked, their employers are responsible for disciplinary action.

As a defense contractor if your clearance is revoked you're toast. At best you might be allowed to hang around doing unclass work for a bit while looking for a job; at worst by breaking the part of your employment contract that says "maintain security clearance as needed for job" you'll be sacked immediately.

It's a pretty incredible claim that he had credentials for two dozen people. Whether or not you think polys work, most people in that area think they do. So they might initially agree to give out a login, but it's pretty amazing that no one reported it.

Quote:

The two latter were not employees of the NSA, so while their access to NSA information access was revoked, their employers are responsible for disciplinary action.

They'll obviously be fired and any background check that touches government records will pull up termination due to a security violation. Almost certainly any job in the public sector, and probably many corporate jobs will be a no go, so that's pretty severe disciplinary action.

Again, that's why I'm highly skeptical of the "20 to 25" people claim.

To be fair, it's disciplinary action from the NSA.

I'd imagine a few people (e:) with deep pockets would be willing to shrug it off.

"However, by sharing his PKI certificate, not implementing anti-leak software, he the NSA's Remote Operations Center facility in Hawaii, failed to comply with security obligations."

Fixed.

It's like body armor. Anyone who gets shot could have been wearing a piece of armor right where they got shot. It's damned heavy, though, so everyone wants to wear the least amount of armor possible.

The same is true when you're working in secure systems, you can install all this software, airgap your networks and have all sorts of elaborate procedures, but at some point you do have to get work done.

And, really, if it was just a lack of installing enough magic anti-hacker software, Snowden wouldn't have needed to get other people to give him their logins. The bottom line is people had to violate agreements they signed for this to happen.

Again congress demands firings for the sake of firings, without paying any mind to the real organizational issues that they can fix themselves. Congress itself is responsible for more of these issues than any other person or entity, they just get to yell and scream louder than the people they are blaming in monkey court hearings. So everyone elect the same guy come November because he demanded umpteen irrelevant firings while shitting on his legislative responsibilities.

The failure congress has a 95% retention rate that the most skilled occupations can't even touch, but don't worry, your congressman isn't one of the bad ones...

The headline seems rather misleading. "NSA civilian employee stripped of clearance due to ties with Snowden" implies some sort of guilt by association. From the article itself, however, it sounds like the guy is being fired for what he did, not for some sort of nebulous "ties" with Snowden.

It's a pretty incredible claim that he had credentials for two dozen people. Whether or not you think polys work, most people in that area think they do. So they might initially agree to give out a login, but it's pretty amazing that no one reported it.

Quote:

The two latter were not employees of the NSA, so while their access to NSA information access was revoked, their employers are responsible for disciplinary action.

They'll obviously be fired and any background check that touches government records will pull up termination due to a security violation. Almost certainly any job in the public sector, and probably many corporate jobs will be a no go, so that's pretty severe disciplinary action.

Again, that's why I'm highly skeptical of the "20 to 25" people claim.

That's basically the reason people argue against polygraph tests. They don't work, frequently disqualifying entirely trustworthy people on the basis that the tester didn't like them or just didn't read their entirely subjective test "accurately", but they give people who pass them and work in the intelligence field the impression that they work, since, after all, they're trustworthy and they passed, so it must be okay to trust people who can pass the test. It's a false sense of security, and a massive security hole the intelligence community has willfully inflicted on themselves even decades after polygraphs have proven unreliable.

Snowden specifically said that the Reuters story was false, that he didn't steal large numbers of keys from others. Perhaps he wasn't being truthful, but given that the top officials of the NSA lied to Congress, it shouldn't be assumed that Reuters' source is being truthful.

It's a pretty incredible claim that he had credentials for two dozen people. Whether or not you think polys work, most people in that area think they do. So they might initially agree to give out a login, but it's pretty amazing that no one reported it.

Quote:

The two latter were not employees of the NSA, so while their access to NSA information access was revoked, their employers are responsible for disciplinary action.

They'll obviously be fired and any background check that touches government records will pull up termination due to a security violation. Almost certainly any job in the public sector, and probably many corporate jobs will be a no go, so that's pretty severe disciplinary action.

Again, that's why I'm highly skeptical of the "20 to 25" people claim.

That's basically the reason people argue against polygraph tests. They don't work, frequently disqualifying entirely trustworthy people on the basis that the tester didn't like them or just didn't read their entirely subjective test "accurately", but they give people who pass them and work in the intelligence field the impression that they work, since, after all, they're trustworthy and they passed, so it must be okay to trust people who can pass the test. It's a false sense of security, and a massive security hole the intelligence community has willfully inflicted on themselves even decades after polygraphs have proven unreliable.

The thing about the poly is that it's one tool that is just part of a larger investigation. They talk to all sorts of people, look at all kinds of records, and there's a human examiner who talks to you about all that. That is as effective as any police work. At worst, the polygraph is a crutch the examiners lean on. They could probably just as well say, "hmm, I don't think you're telling the truth, can we talk about this more" and get the same results.

But even if you got rid of the polygraph, all you're gaining is you don't have to sit in such an uncomfortable chair and have your arm fall asleep. The investigation would still be highly intrusive, and you'd have to give up all kinds of personal information to the government, and that's what makes it suck.

It's a pretty incredible claim that he had credentials for two dozen people. Whether or not you think polys work, most people in that area think they do. So they might initially agree to give out a login, but it's pretty amazing that no one reported it.

Quote:

The two latter were not employees of the NSA, so while their access to NSA information access was revoked, their employers are responsible for disciplinary action.

They'll obviously be fired and any background check that touches government records will pull up termination due to a security violation. Almost certainly any job in the public sector, and probably many corporate jobs will be a no go, so that's pretty severe disciplinary action.

Again, that's why I'm highly skeptical of the "20 to 25" people claim.

That's basically the reason people argue against polygraph tests. They don't work, frequently disqualifying entirely trustworthy people on the basis that the tester didn't like them or just didn't read their entirely subjective test "accurately", but they give people who pass them and work in the intelligence field the impression that they work, since, after all, they're trustworthy and they passed, so it must be okay to trust people who can pass the test. It's a false sense of security, and a massive security hole the intelligence community has willfully inflicted on themselves even decades after polygraphs have proven unreliable.

The thing about the poly is that it's one tool that is just part of a larger investigation. They talk to all sorts of people, look at all kinds of records, and there's a human examiner who talks to you about all that. That is as effective as any police work. At worst, the polygraph is a crutch the examiners lean on. They could probably just as well say, "hmm, I don't think you're telling the truth, can we talk about this more" and get the same results.

But even if you got rid of the polygraph, all you're gaining is you don't have to sit in such an uncomfortable chair and have your arm fall asleep. The investigation would still be highly intrusive, and you'd have to give up all kinds of personal information to the government, and that's what makes it suck.

Except that a polygraph is less reliable than flipping a coin, especially if it's someone who has practiced controlling their heart rate or keeps a tack in their shoe. The rest of the investigation may be great, although clearly not foolproof, but polygraphs are worse than useless, they are actively detrimental to the process.

This actually brings to mind something I read years ago, about the early days of the original Star Trek. There were people high up in the company (I forget now if it was at the studio or it it was at NBC) that felt really, really uncomfortable about how much Spock "looked like Satan" because of those pointed ears and stuff, and they were afraid it would jeopardize the success of the (still in early production stages) show from making it on TV by driving people away from it. So, they made very sure that in ALL brochures and press packages distributed, they'd airbrushed out the ears from Spock.

Of course, when word got out about this, there was a backlash so strong within sci-fi fandom that the powers that be backpeddled majorly and tried to distance themselves from it, and pretended it was some misguided desk flunky at the art department, and then blamed some particular guy at the art department who "just happened to have an airbrush in his hand" at the moment they decided to walk down there to go find a scapegoat. But of course, none of the high-up-there people ever faced any consequences or accepted any blame for it.

This contractor at the NSA may have unwittingly given Snowden his credentials, but this sounds like the same sort of scapegoat-a-minor-employee move, where no one at the higher levels in the company, who were REALLY to blame for how wrong things were at the NSA, face any consequences for their actions. At least, not YET. They're throwing some small-fry to the dogs, hoping everyone will then be satisfied that "something was done," and that everyone will then lose interest in the matter and they'll be safe. oO

I call bullshit. This is an effort to portray Snowden as an evil mastermind who socially engineered his way to secrets he should not have had as a CYA tactic by the NSA. Oh, I'm sure there is enough truth to the allegations from a certain perspective to be plausible. They are spies after all and masters of spin, even more so than corporate PR people. But the media of course will repeat it enough such that it becomes truth. Honestly I don't really know it's bullshit but what I guess happened is that Snowden was more or less shitting himself the whole time and grabbing documents when and where he could because he honestly believed in what he was doing. I find it very unlikely that he had some grand plan to get access to the NSA's dirty laundry.

Snowden specifically said that the Reuters story was false, that he didn't steal large numbers of keys from others. Perhaps he wasn't being truthful, but given that the top officials of the NSA lied to Congress, it shouldn't be assumed that Reuters' source is being truthful.

If he stole one or even asked for others to "borrow" their access he is still a douche.

Snowden specifically said that the Reuters story was false, that he didn't steal large numbers of keys from others. Perhaps he wasn't being truthful, but given that the top officials of the NSA lied to Congress, it shouldn't be assumed that Reuters' source is being truthful.

If he stole one or even asked for others to "borrow" their access he is still a douche.

Right, because clearly, in light of the NSA committing crimes on a massive scale, including but not limited to lying under oath to the congressional oversight committees they answer to, and violating the already overly lax FISC judgements thousands of time, the important thing to focus on is the unproven accusation that Snowden did something "douchey" to get access to those documents that he revealed to the public at great personal cost. Way to keep your perspective.

Regardless of ANYTHING else, massively douchey to jeopardize another person like that without their consent.

So, collecting private/secret data from one person (assuming this report is truthfull) without consent is douchey… What would you call collecting private/secret data from hundreds of millions of people without their consent?

Regardless of ANYTHING else, massively douchey to jeopardize another person like that without their consent.

Snowden definitely cost this person (and maybe others) their job, but they contributed by violating security policies in a pretty serious way.

Snowden's decision to reveal his identity was said to be to prevent a large-scale witch-hunt for the leaker among the community of contractors, but it also simplified the investigation of how the leak occurred and narrowed down the list of unwitting collaborators. Hopefully this will teach people why IT security policies are important. They're not (always) just there to make your life more complicated.

Regardless of ANYTHING else, massively douchey to jeopardize another person like that without their consent.

Snowden definitely cost this person (and maybe others) their job, but they contributed by violating security policies in a pretty serious way.

Snowden's decision to reveal his identity was said to be to prevent a large-scale witch-hunt for the leaker among the community of contractors, but it also simplified the investigation of how the leak occurred and narrowed down the list of unwitting collaborators. Hopefully this will teach people why IT security policies are important. They're not (always) just there to make your life more complicated.

I also have very little sympathy for people who had access to the information and not only didn't make it public, but chose to keep working there and contribute to the unconstitutional dragnet surveillance programs the NSA carries out. Fuck 'em.

Somebody call the whambulance. Our incredibly incompetent spies did something incompetent and a few of them are getting punished for it. I don't know why higher up heads haven't rolled over the incredibly lax security that let Snowden get access in the first place.

Probably a cover-up.

If the truth came out about how poorly managed I suspect things were, well, it would be quite a scandal ... more so than it already is. Then there would surely be demands for the NSA as an agency to be restrained, not just because what they are doing supposedly violates the US Constitution, but also because of the magnitude of the incompetence that would become public knowledge.

I call bullshit. This is an effort to portray Snowden as an evil mastermind who socially engineered his way to secrets he should not have had as a CYA tactic by the NSA. Oh, I'm sure there is enough truth to the allegations from a certain perspective to be plausible. They are spies after all and masters of spin, even more so than corporate PR people. But the media of course will repeat it enough such that it becomes truth. Honestly I don't really know it's bullshit but what I guess happened is that Snowden was more or less shitting himself the whole time and grabbing documents when and where he could because he honestly believed in what he was doing. I find it very unlikely that he had some grand plan to get access to the NSA's dirty laundry.

Possibly - given how the US government has been frantically in damage control this whole time.

One of the things is, the US government to anyone sensible right now has about zero credibility.

Snowden specifically said that the Reuters story was false, that he didn't steal large numbers of keys from others. Perhaps he wasn't being truthful, but given that the top officials of the NSA lied to Congress, it shouldn't be assumed that Reuters' source is being truthful.

Well he did steal something or not? Data? Employees trust? What else?

Both are liars here and I don´t believe Snowden is the innocent child he tries to play either. He is far from just an innocent decent person that tried to reveal the world how awful the NSA is.

He broke trust of allot of his colleagues, workers, etc, so he is an amazing liar, otherwise he would never had pulled this off either, he lied perfectly on this job for months if not more. He had too, otherwise he he would have been caught.

My point is that he tries to play the honest person that everyone has to believe but he lied to his worker, colleagues, friends, etc for what? Months? Years?

For everyone else he is a hero right? But for those in the government he is a traitor.

I know one thing, if I had a company I would not like my employees breaking my trust. Regardless of the justifications and what the government is doing, I don´t think it was his call to decide what was wrong or right.

Regardless of ANYTHING else, massively douchey to jeopardize another person like that without their consent.

Snowden definitely cost this person (and maybe others) their job, but they contributed by violating security policies in a pretty serious way.

Snowden's decision to reveal his identity was said to be to prevent a large-scale witch-hunt for the leaker among the community of contractors, but it also simplified the investigation of how the leak occurred and narrowed down the list of unwitting collaborators. Hopefully this will teach people why IT security policies are important. They're not (always) just there to make your life more complicated.

I also have very little sympathy for people who had access to the information and not only didn't make it public, but chose to keep working there and contribute to the unconstitutional dragnet surveillance programs the NSA carries out. Fuck 'em.

Can you please give me your CC details and publish them in your next comment please? I need to buy something from Amazon.

You know, don´t keep that info secret for the rest of us, and make it public as you just said you don´t appreciate others doing that either.

Snowden specifically said that the Reuters story was false, that he didn't steal large numbers of keys from others. Perhaps he wasn't being truthful, but given that the top officials of the NSA lied to Congress, it shouldn't be assumed that Reuters' source is being truthful.

Well he did steal something or not? Data? Employees trust? What else?

Both are liars here and I don´t believe Snowden is the innocent child he tries to play either. He is far from just an innocent decent person that tried to reveal the world how awful the NSA is.

He broke trust of allot of his colleagues, workers, etc, so he is an amazing liar, otherwise he would never had pulled this off either, he lied perfectly on this job for months if not more. He had too, otherwise he he would have been caught.

My point is that he tries to play the honest person that everyone has to believe but he lied to his worker, colleagues, friends, etc for what? Months? Years?

For everyone else he is a hero right? But for those in the government he is a traitor.

I know one thing, if I had a company I would not like my employees breaking my trust. Regardless of the justifications and what the government is doing, I don´t think it was his call to decide what was wrong or right.

So whose call was it? The people breaking the law? The congress who was either complicit or unaware of the law being broken? The NSA is a military organization, just following orders does not keep your neck from being hanged.

Regardless of ANYTHING else, massively douchey to jeopardize another person like that without their consent.

Snowden definitely cost this person (and maybe others) their job, but they contributed by violating security policies in a pretty serious way.

Snowden's decision to reveal his identity was said to be to prevent a large-scale witch-hunt for the leaker among the community of contractors, but it also simplified the investigation of how the leak occurred and narrowed down the list of unwitting collaborators. Hopefully this will teach people why IT security policies are important. They're not (always) just there to make your life more complicated.

I also have very little sympathy for people who had access to the information and not only didn't make it public, but chose to keep working there and contribute to the unconstitutional dragnet surveillance programs the NSA carries out. Fuck 'em.

Can you please give me your CC details and publish them in your next comment please? I need to buy something from Amazon.

You know, don´t keep that info secret for the rest of us, and make it public as you just said you don´t appreciate others doing that either.

Right, because not telling the world my credit card number is the same thing as covering up a conspiracy to illegally spy on literally everyone in the world. Want my credit card number? Ask the NSA.

It seems this the hour of all this anti US and anti government comments, and guess what? How many of thess are actually at this hour from the US? You guess it, none.

I guess their government are far better and perfect. Its nice to see how people attack something that does not even affect them.

Way to generalize. I'm a US citizen, and it's 3:30 am for me. I work the night shift at a job where, for much of the night, I can sit and use the internet or do my calculus homework. And why wouldn't the rest of the world have the right to an opinion on the US government spying on them? I'm sure you'll be just fine with it if it turns out China is keeping a record of all of your emails, right?